The articles and essays in this blog range from the short to the long. Many of the posts are also introductory (i.e., educational) in nature; though, even when introductory, they still include additional commentary. Older material (dating back mainly to 2005) is being added to this blog over time.

Monday, 12 October 2015

A Miniature: Panpsychism & Monism

What
is the argument for panpsychism? Is it this? -

Since
there is consciousness in the complex parts of the world, and

since
the complex is only a sum of simple parts, it must follow that

there must also be consciousness in the simple parts of the world.

Premises
i and ii seem intuitively true. However, is iii a correct conclusion to premises i and ii? Is it in fact true?

There
is indeed “consciousness in the complex parts of the world”. For
instance, in the brains of human beings (if ‘in’ is the correct word here). And many people agree that consciousness is a result of some level
of complexity.

How
complex must something be in order to bring about consciousness?
Human beings, for example, have billions of neurons in their brains.
Ants have, say, tens - or hundreds - of thousands of neurons in their brains. Is this enough to
bring about consciousness? Or is there more to this story than simply
counting how many neurons a creature has?If a creature had trillions
of neurons, would it be ultra-conscious (or have ultra-consciousness)? And need that complexity only be the complexity of
neurons and other aspects of the human brain?

What
if we connected a thousand computers up together and programmed them to work
as one? If that could be done, then would that large-scale and complex integration automatically bring about consciousness? Alternatively, is it an a priori truth that something
simple (like an earthworm or even a pencil) can’t be conscious?

As
for premise ii). Yes, it would seem to be the case that “the
complex is only a sum of simple parts”. (Indeed the complexmust be
a sum of simple parts otherwise it wouldn’t be, well, complex.) However, what about the word “only” - as in “only the sum”?
Perhaps there's more to a complex machine, creature or thing than
simply the addition of simple parts to one another in order to create
a complex whole. Perhaps something emerges from the addition
of simple parts. Is
a nation state, for example, only the sum of its parts? Is a
class or set only the sum of its members? Is mind or
consciousness only the sum of the parts of the brain (as well
as, perhaps, other physical things)?